


A Shadow Rises - Part III

by MeganOfSaints



Series: A Shadow Rises [3]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Other, Post-Red War (Destiny), The Red War (Destiny), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:00:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27664400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeganOfSaints/pseuds/MeganOfSaints
Summary: Feyea and the other shadows are sent on a covert mission by Calus to stop the Red Legion and their leader, Dominus Ghaul. It does not go as planned
Series: A Shadow Rises [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652779
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	A Shadow Rises - Part III

** A Shadow Rises – Chapter III **

Arriving in transmat on the Leviathan, Feyea’s plated claws touched down on the gilded and sparkling surface of the Emperor's landing zone. Astra hovered over her shoulder; her spiked plates designed to be a warning to those who would attempt to grab at the ghost. _Dangerous_. _Lethal._ Feyea took one last look at the golden seal adorning the envelope she was sent nearly three weeks ago. With the city in near chaos from the red legions attacks growing stronger, she felt there was nothing else she could do aside from agreeing to Calus’s wishes for a meeting with his shadows.

As she approached the heavy metal, interlocking doors of the Leviathan, a second ship touched down near to her own landing platform. She watched through narrowed slits in her helmet for the second shadow. An Eliksni dropped onto the golden sheen of the landing pad, scattering an ether cloud in his wake. Sekris stood to his full height and pressed a button on his gauntlets that allowed the ship behind him to shimmer out of existence. Astra noted. _We should get something like that._ Feyea was not in the right mind to consider asking the traitorous Eliksni for his cybernetic enhancements.

Sekris, narrowing his eyes at the guardian in front of him, noted, “Guardian.” His tone seemed less than friendly. Astra bristled at the tone of voice used against her light-bearer. Feyea shot a glance at her ghost and blandly said to Sekris, “Traitor.”

Sekris’ ether tanks flared to life in an angry puff and he inflected, “Let us be on our way. Calus is not one to be kept waiting.”

“Agreed.” Feyea turned on her heels and entered the palace with a less than ideal compatriot. But another shadow nonetheless.

Entering the meeting chamber, Sekris pushed ahead of her and kneeled at the foot of Calus, who dwarfed the Baron’s already massive frame. Astra hovered a little lower over Feyea’s shoulder, despite wearing her battle armor. Holstering her auto-rifle, Feyea padded around the other side of Calus and gave him a bow at the waist, her eyes cast to the floor before rising to his. Calus boomed as Feyea noted five other bodies in the room, mostly Cabal. Other shadows that she had not had a chance to meet yet. All covered in gilded ribbons and devotion to Calus, she noted most of them wore heavy battle armor.

She tightened her cowl over her head, concealing her helmet. Astra settled on her shoulder, the metal spikes of her shell _clinking_ against her own armor.

Calus boomed, “Greetings and welcome my shadows. It is a wonderful time to be meeting all of you and seeing your faces. I shall grow in delight that you have all come to aid me in my time of need and in the time of your people’s need. The republic that I have built is in terrible peril from my Consul and his traitor of a dominus. I do not recognize him as such despite the title he has given himself.”

Sekris chittered from the side of the room, “What is it you ask of us, dear Emperor?”

Feyea eyes flickered back to Calus, “I ask that you take a team to assassinate this _dominus_ ,” Calus spit out, darkness creeping into his voice, “You will eliminate this threat to my existence at all costs.”

“How do you ask this of us?” She asked.

“By. Any. Means. Necessary.” Calus spit out. “May you grow fat from strength.” And with that, he turned from the dais and exited the room. The three other Cabal shadows followed each other out of the door. Sekris caught the eye of Feyea and he snarled, “Don’t consider yourself invited _Guardian_.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Feyea snapped in response, “Good luck.” She added to the Eliksni who was already leaving.

_Astra, fire the transmat._

_As you wish._ A strange, not-unfamiliar tingle rang throughout her entire body as her vision dipped in and out of the chamber. Her feet hit the inside of the ship's hull and she threw down her pouches and hung her holster on its designated spot on the wall.

 _Astra, set a course for the Red Legion’s camp in the European Dead Zone._ Feyea tersely said as she removed her helmet, inhaling deeply. Astra’s return quip was following by beeping and the raising of the ship from its golden perch. Astra threw herself into her seat and rubbed her gloved hands over her face. Astra sat in her perch on the dashboard of the ship, whirling and beeping for a couple of minutes before the ship grew silent. Feyea basked in the silence for a moment before Astra chipped in, _You need not start a fight with Calus._

“He took my son from me.”

_We don’t know what he did._

“He has information.”

_You don’t know that._

“He has to!” Feyea slammed her fist into the side of the hull of the ship and Astra jumped in her perch. “Sorry.” Feyea’s eyes pricked with tears. “There is no hope for my son, that I may find him in this life?”

 _You know I will stand behind whatever decision you make. I will always stand behind you._ Astra detached from her perch and landed softly on the metal plating of Feyea’s chest plates, a soft _ding_ resounding in the quiet of the ship.

“I would not stand idly by while Calus uses me as a toy to fulfill whatever dark wishes he wants. But I cannot get any information out of him if I am not close to him and in his confidence. He has already spoiled me beyond any other guardian in existence. Everything I own is also his. I will not allow him to take my son from me. That is mine and mine alone.”

_And if he has no information for you, what will you do then?_

Feyea’s eyes pricked with tears. She whispered softly into the silence, “I don’t know.”

_You are allowing a possibly false memory to guide your heart and decision down dark roads, some roads the light may not be able to follow you into._

“It felt so real. I can still feel the ache in my heart from the echo.”

_Perhaps it’s the darkness toying with you._

“What a cruel joke. But to what end would it benefit to using me?”

_You are the strongest guardian in existence. Slayer of Gods and Titans. What couldn’t it gain from having you as an ally?_

“I need to see this to the end. For my own sanity.” Feyea said with finality. Astra huffed but repeated that they were with Feyea’s decision until her dying days.

Astra noted after a moment of silence, _what supplies do we need?_

“We will make camp outside the City of Light and then we will hunt down this Dominus Ghaul.”

_Should we ask for assistance?_

“Cayde said we are alone.”

 _You are never alone Guardian._ Astra’s inflection changed and for a moment, it sounds deeper and more resonant, as if the light was speaking through her instead. Feyea rolled over and said, “Reach out to the fireteam. See if any of them want to rock some Cabal helmets.”

_As you wish._

… - … - …

As Feyea huddled in the cold outside the City of Light, a burning fire smoking low in the frigid cold, she felt a warm touch against her shoulder and she whirled to see nothing behind her except a shoddy tent and a backpack with supplies. She only brought the essentials and would leave most of them behind while she infiltrated the legion’s ship. She returned to staring at the fire and swore she saw a pair of soft, warm, inviting brown eyes staring back at her. She shook her head in her helmet and blinked a couple of times to clear her vision. No such eyes continued to stare back at her. She huddled closer under her blanket and exchanged the now exhausted heating coil in her suit for a new one.

Calus was good for something. A never-ending supply cache.

It was useless to check her weapons again. She had already checked them twice to make sure everything was functional and without issue. No one had answered her call to aid, which had stung more than one nerve in her body. She was frustrated with Cayde and his inability to see reason and sense in this kind of situation. Perhaps she was wrong about him. Perhaps she was wrong about the Guardians and the light in general. Perhaps they only serve themselves and no one else in need. 

Feyea turned to the tent and crawled inside, hunkering down for the next couple of hours before dusk to attempt to get some sleep.

Sleep was fitful at best. Her dreams were plagued with glimpses of galaxies far away and Calus’s booming voice commanding her to kill for him over and over and over again.

She woke only an hour later with Astra sitting on her chest, the ghost keeping a watching eye on the entrance to the tent so they could warn Feyea of any danger.

She snarled and sat up, Astra hovering only a couple of inches away, “We might as well just go and scout for a couple of hours. Maybe take out some patrols in the outer reaches first before we mount an attack.”

 _Sounds like a good idea to me._ Astra sounded hesitant but didn’t state anything further.

Leaving her tent and shouldering her backpack, she went hiking up a mountain to a better vantage point.

… - … - …

Dropping down into an air vent covered in age-old rust and dust was the least of Feyea’s worries. She had five minutes to find the observation deck where the dominus was supposedly torturing the Speaker. She had glimpsed the Speaker of the Traveler only once while in the City of Light. He had been conversing with a group of humans down a side street. They had stopped him and inquired about his health and wellbeing. He gave them blessings and gave the children around him some sugary sweets he carried in his pockets. Being without light, but being blessed to speak to the traveler, draw so many to him for guidance.

Cayde always spoke highly of him and so did Zavala. Feyea always watched him with caution. He was not of the light. Only given the title by someone hundreds of years ago.

Crawling through the vent and gaining a layer of dust that would take her _week_ s to clean out from under each metal plate, she came to an opening that allowed her to sneak through one mess hall and down another vent to a cabin. Inside, she found a sleeping cabal that seemed to be propped up against the wall. She frowned for a moment and surveyed the room. It took her a moment to notice the black ichor dribbling down the Cabal’s frame. She cursed and launched herself into action.

She wasn’t the only shadow here. Of course, one of them had beaten her to the chase. Which means, they could be in danger or could already have alerted the dominus to an attack. She didn’t hear any alarms blaring or sirens wailing. She would take that as a good sign for right now and continue on her path. But now she had even more of a time crunch.

Crawling once more through the dust and debris, she found herself on her stomach, looking down and around a corner where the dominus sits in his chair across from where the Speaker lay chained, his body tilted ever so forward to put a strain on his arms, to slowly pull them from their sockets.

The Speaker’s mask was smoking, a clear fissure and dent in the center of it. He intoned, in a voice that sounded resigned to its fate, “It would save us both a lot of time if you would just kill me.”

“For one who calls himself _Speaker_ …you have remarkably little to say.” The dominus intoned, so soft for a moment that Feyea almost couldn’t hear it. She strained a little further into the vent, wondering if dropping into the room and vanishing for a moment to get to cover would be the smarter option. She started unscrewing the vent grate.

“We have learned that one of your Guardians has reconnected to their past, moved beyond their Light.” The Dominus inflected and Feyea froze for a moment, wondering how the information traveled to the Cabal so quickly when Cayde was the only one she had ever mentioned her new memories too. Not even Calus was aware of her newfound recollections. He continued, “You say you have no power over the Traveler, yet…this. Help me understand, Speaker.”

“The light lives in all places,” He replied, turning his gaze to the Dominus, “In all things. You can block it, even try to trap it. But the Light will find its way. And the Traveler will _protect_ itself.” The Speaker spit out as if trying to burn the Dominus with just the power of his words.

Out of the corner of her eye, Feyea noted a movement out of the corner of her eye, and with a changing of her sensors in her helmet, she noted Sekris crawling nearly invisible along the ground, his four arms keeping the weight of his body from dragging on the ground and making noise.

Feyea eyes blew open wide and for a moment, she thought Sekris might attempt to assassinate the Dominus without any note of being in the room with him. If the Traveler noted any movement behind the Dominus, he said nothing.

“The Traveler…” The Dominus continued, “I have studied it. The worlds it has touched. It’s power over life and death. We are not so different, you Traveler and I.”

“You are nothing like the Traveler. _Nothing_!” The Speaker spit out venomously as if to maim with just his voice. Feyea was touched by the devotion of this man, who could so easily be slain by one stroke of the mighty sword slung across the back of the Dominus. He continued, “You think you have power. I know your kind. You started small and you will end small because, at the end of it all, you cannot make something out of nothing.”

The Dominus lashed out and wrapped its hand across the Speaker’s throat and Feyea jumped down from the grate, jumping down so lithely that she barely made a sound. But she did alert Sekris of her presence. For a moment, they stared at each other and for a moment, an understanding swept between them.

Both races, bound by the Traveler. Both honors bound to prevent its power from going anywhere else. To protect what is theirs by right. 

The Dominus squeezed his hand around the Speakers throat, causing a choked gurgle to come from his direction, he said, “If the Travel truly has chosen humanity of its own free will…then there is no reason I should not reach inside and take it for myself and leave this system in ashes!”

“Only those the Travel choose will be reborn in the Light.” The Speaker snarled and looked over the Dominus’ shoulder to Feyea, who was frozen still from fear and listening. She severely wished he hadn’t.

The Dominus whirled around as Sekris launched himself at the hulking mass, flying right into his plates of armor and warding him away from the soft spot at the back of his neck and his spinal cord. Feyea immediately leaped into action by firing a flaming dagger into the metal plates between the ribs of the massive albino Cabal. The Dominus snarled and cried out, pulling the dagger from his side while also throwing Sekris clean across the room, slamming him into the metal panels of the wall. He spun in time to activate a button on his chair. Alarms blared through the whole of the room and red lights began flashing.

Feyea snarled, crouched on the ground, auto rifle aimed at the head of the Dominus, and she open fires, yelling her victory cry as half a dozen cabal entered the room, guns trained on Sekris and the Speaker. The Dominus turned and sidestepped her bullets, deflecting them with a solar shield around himself.

Sekris picked himself up off the ground and in a flurry of blades and daggers, launched himself at the Dominus one more time before being caught in the strong grip of the albino Cabal, his grip cracking every bone in the Eliksni’s hands and forearms. Sekris howled in pain as the Dominus snarled, “Blood Traitor. I know your kind. Haunted by the vision of what the Traveler did to your people. You serve the false, greedy emperor.” The Dominus dislocated Sekris’s second arms from his body and Sekris stumbled back.

Feyea felt the flames start to lick up the sides of her cloak. She knew she could shatter that solar shield in an instant. But the six cabal surrounding the Speaker prevented her from making a move. She looked back and forth from Sekris to the Dominus to the Speaker. The small figure of the chained human looked frail and tiny in this chamber, his arms tired and under so much stress his entire torso sagged forward.

Sekris screamed as his dislocated arms were further ripped from his body in a puff of ether. The Dominus inhaled the heavy, denser air the Eliksni breathed and he forced Sekris to his knees, a hand wrapped around his throat and rebreather, cutting off any air supply.

“What will it be Guardian?” The Dominus turned to her as her flames grew brighter and darker, all-consuming her vision. She looked to the Speaker. She didn’t wish to harm him.

The Speaker whispered, as if just to her, “The Traveler has always protected those who are devoted to it.”

In a split moment, she jumped and boosted herself with the thrusters in her leg extenders to get the best angle and screamed in fury as she breathed in the flames and exhaled a torrent of fire in the form of daggers. Each hit their mark. The six Cabal surrounding the Speaker all lit up in flames and exploded with black, oily ichor. The Dominus whose shield’s shattered into a million pieces and caused the resulting explosion to deafen and blind the room. Light exited from her body in so many places she could feel her soul burning. But it was not enough to bring down the Dominus.

Dropping Sekris’s lifeless corpse still smoking from her fire, he stepped up to her exhausted form and backhanded her across the chamber. Her limp body skidded to a grinding halt against the platform which held the Speaker; who was unharmed and untouched by her fire.

Dominus stormed across the chamber to her limp body, exhausted from the expulsion of her light, and stomped on her legs, shattering the metal plates which held her delicate and lighter-than-air bones. She screamed in agony and whimpered as the pressure of Dominus’ massive foot pressed down into her broken form.

The Dominus inquired in a booming baritone, “Tell me again Speaker.” He gestured to the body under his boot, “What makes your Guardians worthy of the Light?

“What is the price of such power and immortality?”

The sensors in her helmet were going haywire, error codes flashing and Astra whirling behind her, ready for a fight if necessary.

The Speaker said, “Devotion. Self-Sacrifice…” He paused for a moment and looked down to where Feyea lay beneath the boot of the mighty Dominus Ghaul, “Death.”

“Death?” Ghaul said, “Explain.”

“Devotion inspire bravery, much like what it took for Feyea to expend every ounce of her power to stop you. Bravery inspires sacrifice. She knew she could possibly die from her actions. She knew her ghost could be harmed at any time. And sacrificing herself leads to death.”

The Speaker was solemn as he spits out, “So…feel free to kill yourself.”

The Dominus hummed a muted tone but still pressed down into Feyea broken body once more, earning a groan and whine from her lungs.

Astra cried out to Feyea, _How do we come back from this?_

The Dominus snarled, “You don’t!’

_Guardian, something is wrong._

“Pre-prepare for t-tr-trans…mat” Feyea choked out, the metal casing and shell pressing down into her vital orangs from all sides from the pressure.

The last thing Feyea heard…

_Transmat firing._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
